Project Summary:
Community health workers (CHWs) are frontline public health workers who are trusted members or have particularly good understanding of the community being served. CHWs thrive in spaces that connect community and social-service resources to clinical settings by having the full story of their clients? needs and identifying which factors are barriers to improving health outcomes. Engaging CHWs from across Wisconsin to come together to discuss, share, and learn from each other about their work around chronic disease prevention, SDOH, community building, and health equity is key to advancing the CHW workforce and their work to improve Wisconsin's health.
Through Learning Event Support funding, the learning event will bring Wisconsin community health workers (CHWs) together to learn about and participate in the reestablishment and structure of the WI CHW Network as well as provide learning and skill-building opportunities around care-coordination, sustainability, and advocacy for CHWs to apply to their workforce development repertoire. The Wisconsin Community Health Worker Network Kick-off Summit will support attendees to participate in the structural establishment of the WI CHW Network, learn about examples of CHW networks from across the nation in order to apply best practices, expand knowledge of CHW care-coordination, and increase skills in CHW advocacy, team-based care communication, and preventing workforce burn-out.
Key Collaborators: UniteMKE Pathways HUB, Great Rivers Pathways HUB, Milwaukee Area Health Education Center (AHEC), United Voices Collaborative, Wisconsin Department of Health Services Chronic Disease Prevention Program (CDPP), UW-Madison Population Health Institute Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH), Wisconsin Public Health Association (WPHA)